Trent Hawkins for Senate

Trent Hawkins
SENATE

Trent is a 24-year-old activist and PhD student of engineering at the University of Western Australia. He got involved in politics on campus in 2003, joining the student campaign against the invasion of Iraq, and has since consistently been involved in campaigning against the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Trent has also served as a UWA Guild Councillor in 2005 and been involved in campaigns against the Howard government's university fee increases and voluntary student
unionism legislation.

Trent is the president of the Perth branch of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network. He visited Venezuela in December 2006 during the country's most recent presidential election, where socialist president Hugo Chavez was re-elected in an overwhelming victory. The revolutionary transformation of Venezuelan society, where the poor are being empowered to take control over their lives, communities and resources for the first time is a major inspiration for Trent and others invoved in building the socialist movement here in Australia.

A leading youth activist in Perth over recent years, Trent is the Perth organiser of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and organised the recent high-school student walkout against the visit of George Bush for the APEC summit in September, which hundreds of students participated in. He is currently involved in organising young people in the environment movement, and has initiated a youth and student contingent to the upcoming Walk Against Warming march, which
will be happening around the country on Sunday November 11.

Trent said, "Young people need to be at the forefront of the movement to stop climate change; it's our world and our future, and increasing numbers of young people are coming to the realisation that only radical social change will solve this problem. A Newspoll released in Februry this year showed that 94% of 18-34 year olds think climate change is a massive problem, and the Democrats' Youth Poll 2007 found that 87% of young people think the government is not doing enough to
address it.

"Young people are dismayed at the Labor Party's environmental policies, particluarly at the decision of the Tasmanian state Labor government to approve the Gunns pulp mill, and the ALP's decision at its national conference to drop its no-new-mines policy and back an expansion in the poisonous uranium mining industry.

"It is widely agreed in climate science that we have a narrow window of about 10 years to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change; these cuts require more than changing our lightbulbs. The government and big business advocate
individual-based solutions to reducing emissions, when the reality is that a fundamental transformation in industry and massive investment in renewable enery is what's necessary. The major parties lack the political will to take this sort of action for the sole reason that it will hurt their pockets.

"The Socialist Alliance is the only party contesting these elections that stands for the kind of radical change necessary in industry and government; we stand for people and planet before profit, and believe in democraticownership and control of the earth's resources. We don't just think we can make small changes here and there through parliament, but aim to build a mass movment of working people, on the streets, in their schools and workplaces, that can force whatever
government that's in power to act in the planet's interests – and that can ultimately change the system and build a sustainable, democratic socialist society that puts people and the environment first.

"I'm calling on all young people not just to vote for the Socialist Alliance, but to get active in the movement to stop the destruction of our planet by oil-thirsty warmongers and climate vandals: we want renewable energy now, not wars for oil!"

Election campaign meeting

Come to the next Socialist Alliance campaign meeting at 2pm, Sunday, October 21st.

The meeting is at the Resistance Centre, Unit 15/5 Aberdeen St (formerly Short St), East Perth, near McIver station.

Anyone interested in helping with the Socialist Alliance election campaign is welcome to attend.

Sam Wainwright for Fremantle

The Socialist Alliance has chosen Sam Wainwright as its candidate for the seat of Fremantle in the coming federal election. Wainwright, a thirty-seven year old resident of O’Connor, works and lives in the electorate. He is a wharfie at the DP World container terminal at North Quay and an active member of the Maritime Union of Australia, editing its West Australian journal.

Wainwright explained some of the Socialist Alliance’s main campaign themes, “The Howard government has shown itself to be morally bankrupt and a policy disaster zone regarding its anti-worker WorkChoices laws, its support for the murderous war in Iraq and its inability to acknowledge the enormity of the global warming crisis. Unfortunately these are also all issues on which the ALP has failed to provide any real opposition.” Wainwright added, “Kevin Rudd thinks it’s enough to just tinker around the edges.”

Expanding on these themes he said, “Poll after poll shows that Australians hate WorkChoices, they want these anti-worker laws buried. Eighteen months ago Kim Beazley was promising to tear up WorkChoices, but Kevin Rudd has been caving in to big business pressure and every day says he will leave more in place.” Wainwright concluded, “Instead of getting rid of WorkChoices, Rudd is serving up WorkChoices Lite. This is not good enough, it’s all got to go.”

Regarding the war in Iraq Wainwright said, “Only fools and liars pretend that the invasion of Iraq was not about seizing that country’s oil assets. And at what bloody cost? Over six hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed, the majority of them civilians. The Howard government’s support for the occupation is an act of terror. The only moral course for Australia is an immediate and unconditional withdrawal.”

“As for climate change,” Wainwright said, “The government’s cynicism knows no bounds. First they deny that there is a problem, then when the pressure gets too much Johnny-come-lately admits there’s a problem but tries to manipulate the issue to the benefit of the uranium lobby. The toxic legacy of nuclear power has not been solved. Renewables can and must be our energy future. Let’s have no part of the nuclear cycle and leave uranium in the ground.”

Wainwright is a former ALP member and was Secretary of Young Labor in Tasmania, where he grew up. He observed, “Like many people I had my heart broken by Labor’s pro-privatisation and pro-big business policies. I think the way it has been seeking out so-called celebrity candidates and taking donations from big business symbolises the party it’s become.” Wainwright continued, “We’ve got to see the back of Howard, which is why we’ll be directing our preferences to the Greens and then Labor. But it’s very clear that Rudd will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing by Australian workers and our communities. If my campaign helps do that, then all the better.”

For further comment

Phone: Sam Wainwright 0412 751 508

Email: fremantle@socialist-alliance.org Web: www.socialist-alliance.org

Chris Latham for Perth

Chris Latham
PERTH

Chris Latham is a post-graduate student and tutor at Murdoch University, and an activist in the National Tertiary Education Union. As a member of the Murdoch branch committee of the NTEU, he is involved in organising casually employed staff at Murdoch to win better conditions in the face of the restrictions imposed on workers' and unions' rights by the Howard government's Higher Eduacation Workplace Relations Requirements (HEWRR). Chris stands for the repeal of the raft of legislation introduced by the Howard government that attacks higher education and student and staff rights, including HEWRR, Work Choices, fee increases and voluntary student unionism.

Chris is the WA state convener of the Socialist Alliance.

As well as campaigning for the rights of students and university staff, Chris has also been a longtime activist in campaigns to build international solidarity with struggles against war and poverty around the world, and with the Asia-Pacific region in particular. In the late 1990's, Chris was the student campaigns officer of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), raising awareness and support among young people and students in Australia for the East
Timorese struggle for independence.

He is currently supporting the struggle in Burma/Myanmar against the country's military dictatorship, and will be calling on the Liberal and Labor parties to cut ties with the regime through his election campaign. According to Chris, "the Australian government sheds crocodile tears over the vicious repression of the pro-democracy movement in Burma/Myanmar, but at the same time the Australian Federal Police are involved in training the dictatorship's police. The Socialist Alliance fully supports the democracy movement led by National League of Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi against the illegitimate junta in Burma/Myanmar, and we are actively supporting the solidarity demonstrations here in Australia."

Chris was a founding member of the Perth No War Alliance, the group that organised the large demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq in 2002-03, and has been a leading anti-war activist in Perth since before the US-led, Australian-backed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He was involved in organising the rallies against Israel's invasion of Lebanon last year, and was recently involved in organising the Stop Bush demonstration in Fremantle that drew hundreds of people out to protest the visit to Australia for the APEC summit of what he calls "the world's number one war criminal and climate vandal", US President George W. Bush.

Chris said, "The Socialist Alliance is internationalist: we are struggling for a society based on equality and justice, and we recognise that this is a global struggle. A rich, industrialised nation like Australia has the capacity to play a positive role internationally in overcoming poverty and the legacy of colonialism, but instead we see bipartisan support for Australia to play a bullying, dominant and exploitative role in the Asia-Pacific region. We have also unfortunately only heard mealy-mouthed opposition from the ALP to the Howard government's participation in the disastrous occupation of Iraq – and no opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan."

"The occupation has turned Iraq into hell on Earth, with the latest estimates suggesting that one million Iraqis have died unnecessarily as a result of the 2003 invasion. A further three and a half million Iraqis have been turned into refugees. The fact that Australia has been a willing participant in this mass slaughter is is abhorrent to the majority of Australian people, who want the troops home now."

He continued, "The Socialist Alliance stands for the rights of the Iraqi and Afghan people to determine their own future free from the oil-hungry war-mongerers in Washington, London and Canberra. We will continue to lead the anti-war movement in its demands that all Australian troops be immediately withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, for an end to Australia's military alliance with the US, and for the Australian government to pay war reparations to its victims."

Annolies Truman for Pearce

Annolies Truman is a community activist who advocates environmental sustainability and human rights. Annolies taught English to migrants for 12 years and knows about the plight of refugees from personal experience. As a community project officer, she worked for the closure of the Waterloo Incinerator, a major polluter in Syndey. She has been a trainer for Earthworks, a community waste reduction program, and has taught Permaculture.

Annolies is a convenor of the Perth Hills branch of the Socialist Alliance. She co-founded the Hills No War Alliance in early 2003, which will continue to meet and organise anti-war activity in the Hills until Australian troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan.

She has been involved in the Aboriginal Rights movement since the 1980's and participated in the Sydney-based Deaths in Custody Watch Committee. She currently tutors Indigenous students. She is outraged at the Howard government's treatment of Indigenous people and is proudly part of the Alliance's defence of Aboriginal Rights.

Annolies said, "In my view, the rights and living standards of Indigenous Australians is the most serious human rights issue facing us in Australia today. Aboriginal people have a life expectancy 17-18years lower than non-Indigenous Australians, and the average infant mortality rate is three times higher than that of the rest of the Australian population."

"Since its election in 1996, the Howard government has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in services to Indigenous communities. While the government ended the 2005 financial year with its federal budget $13.6 billion in surplus, basic primary health-care services for Aboriginal communities are under-funded by at least $450 million each year."

Annolies continued: "Instead of taking action to empower Indigenous people through a Treaty and bill of rights, to end the Third World living conditions in Indigenous communities, and to pay compensation for the horrific abuses of the past, the Howard government is instead sending in the army to police Indigenous communities under the cynical pretext of stopping child abuse. This measure will fail to solve social problems resulting from extreme poverty and marginalisation,
and shifts control away from Aboriginal land councils to the federal government, something that willtake native title backwards 40 years."

"The Socialist Alliance has played a central role in standing side by side with Aboriginal Australians in campaigns for justice; we are part of the ongoing struggle against deaths in custody, and for justice for the victims of police brutality, such as Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee and Redfern teenager TJ Hickey. Mass protest movements can change not only government policy, but also the attitudes of large numbers of people."

"The Socialist Alliance is committed to working with others to build people-power movements that don't just win a small gain here and there, but make real change. We don't just stand against racism: we recognise that it is an essential tool of the ruling minority to divide us from each other under this system, and we stand for an alternative. We're about trying to work together towards another type of society — one that is based on equality, democracy and sustainability, in which we can truly make racism history."

Sam Wainwright for Fremantle

The Socialist Alliance has chosen Sam Wainwright as its candidate for the seat of Fremantle in the coming federal election. Wainwright, a thirty-seven year old resident of O’Connor, works and lives in the electorate. He is a wharfie at the DP World container terminal at North Quay and an active member of the Maritime Union of Australia, editing its West Australian journal.

Wainwright explained some of the Socialist Alliance’s main campaign themes, “The Howard government has shown itself to be morally bankrupt and a policy disaster zone regarding its anti-worker WorkChoices laws, its support for the murderous war in Iraq and its inability to acknowledge the enormity of the global warming crisis. Unfortunately these are also all issues on which the ALP has failed to provide any real opposition.” Wainwright added, “Kevin Rudd thinks it’s enough to just tinker around the edges.”

Expanding on these themes he said, “Poll after poll shows that Australians hate WorkChoices, they want these anti-worker laws buried. Eighteen months ago Kim Beazley was promising to tear up WorkChoices, but Kevin Rudd has been caving in to big business pressure and every day says he will leave more in place.” Wainwright concluded, “Instead of getting rid of WorkChoices, Rudd is serving up WorkChoices Lite. This is not good enough, it’s all got to go.”

Regarding the war in Iraq Wainwright said, “Only fools and liars pretend that the invasion of Iraq was not about seizing that country’s oil assets. And at what bloody cost? Over six hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed, the majority of them civilians. The Howard government’s support for the occupation is an act of terror. The only moral course for Australia is an immediate and unconditional withdrawal.”

“As for climate change,” Wainwright said, “The government’s cynicism knows no bounds. First they deny that there is a problem, then when the pressure gets too much Johnny-come-lately admits there’s a problem but tries to manipulate the issue to the benefit of the uranium lobby. The toxic legacy of nuclear power has not been solved. Renewables can and must be our energy future. Let’s have no part of the nuclear cycle and leave uranium in the ground.”

Wainwright is a former ALP member and was Secretary of Young Labor in Tasmania, where he grew up. He observed, “Like many people I had my heart broken by Labor’s pro-privatisation and pro-big business policies. I think the way it has been seeking out so-called celebrity candidates and taking donations from big business symbolises the party it’s become.” Wainwright continued, “We’ve got to see the back of Howard, which is why we’ll be directing our preferences to the Greens and then Labor. But it’s very clear that Rudd will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing by Australian workers and our communities. If my campaign helps do that, then all the better.”

For further comment

Phone: Sam Wainwright 0412 751 508

Email: fremantle@socialist-alliance.org Web: www.socialist-alliance.org